A Hundred Suns

by Karin Tanabe

  I accompanied her inside, where Lap, the head butler, handed me the telephone. He stood next to me as I said hello.

  “Le Chat d’Or. Thirty minutes,” a man said and hung up.

  “Thank you, that will be all,” I replied to dead air.

  When I walked back outside, Khoi had moved farther from the house.

  “I forgot to tell you, regarding Anne-Marie…”

  “Yes?” I said, my heart hurting at the sound of her name.

  “In an odd twist of fate,” said Khoi, “Sinh’s father said he might know where she is.”

  “Oh, I hope so,” I said quietly. I kissed Khoi on the cheek, thankful that through everything, even through our differences, we were still knotted around each other.

  “Where are you going?” he called as I stood to leave.

  “Le Chat d’Or.”

  “At this hour?”

  “I have an errand to run,” I said. “The phone call.”

  “Ah.” Khoi nodded. “The money is in my dresser.”

  I had my chauffeur drop me by the opera house and then, when he was out of sight, climbed into a pousse-pousse and told the driver my destination.

  Twenty minutes later, we were in the red-light district near Kam Thien Street at a large house known as Le Chat d’Or. Its plaster walls were washed a light pink, and its green wooden shutters were pulled closed. I climbed the stairs to the side entry on the second level and rang the bell. A pretty indigène who looked to be in her twenties opened it and told me to follow her up one more level. She left me in a sitting room where a woman in a billowing dress who was old enough to be her mother sat drinking tea, staring out the window. It was not shuttered and had a direct view of the staircase I’d just climbed.

  “Where is Red?” I asked her, without bothering to extend a greeting. She looked me up and down and shrugged.

  “Hugh Redvers. Red,” I repeated. “I’m sure he’s a regular here.” I reached into my bag and put more piastres than she deserved on the table by her teacup.

  “Come,” she said, standing. Together, we walked down a windowless hallway and into a much larger room with a dining table where a stark naked Western girl was serving three Frenchmen their lunch. Another one was in a corner with a man and was doing a lot more than serving him lunch. Thankfully I didn’t know any of the men, and they didn’t look at me strangely, no doubt assuming I was another European whore about to shed her clothes. All the girls at Le Chat d’Or were from Central Europe. If the Frenchmen wanted local flesh, they went elsewhere.

  “He’s not here,” I said to the woman. “Could you point me in the right direction before I become pregnant just by seeing all this?”

  We walked back into the hall and turned right. “The women aren’t getting pregnant,” she said, her voice flat. “They’re getting paid.”

  “I would hope so.”

  She peered into another room, gesturing for me to do the same. There was only one man inside, and I could tell just by glimpsing his bare bottom that he was not Red. “Listen, I’m not in the mood to see all you have on offer here,” I said as we stepped away. “I’m just looking for Red.” I reached into my bag and handed her more piastres.

  She counted the money and said, “Top floor,” before putting it in her dress pocket. She pointed to a staircase. “Best room in the house for Red. Always,” she said before walking off.

  How unsurprising.

  I climbed the stairs to a landing and saw that there were four bedrooms up there. Only one had the door open. It was the right room.

  A thin blond woman, naked except for high-heeled pink leather shoes, was kneeling between Red’s parted legs. His white dress shirt was still on, although unbuttoned completely, and he was wearing nothing else. He had one hand on her cheek, the other holding a cigarette, and he was muttering something inaudible to her.

  “Is this what you wanted me to observe?” I said loudly, taking a few steps into the room. “I’ve seen better.”

  “I don’t doubt that you have,” he said, smirking at me. He was definitely the kind of man who practiced that half smile in the mirror. “Cigarette?” he offered.

  “I’ll pass,” I replied, keeping my eyes above his neck.

  The girl who was hard at work pleasuring him paused, pulled her mouth off his erect penis, and looked at me, her lipstick slightly smeared, her irritation apparent.

  “Don’t pay attention to her, Katya. She’s not staying long,” said Red. “Unless she wants to join in?”

  “She doesn’t,” I said, reaching into the bag hanging from the crook of my arm. I took out a bundle of piastres, which were wrapped in a thin piece of rice paper and tied with one of the Nguyens’ green silk ribbons. I held it toward Red. “Would you like it, or shall I give it directly to her?”

  “On the bed is fine,” he said, motioning with his head.

  “Done,” I said, walking over and leaving it on the black cotton coverlet, careful not to touch the fabric.

  “She went to the plantation, didn’t she?” he said before letting out a low moan. The girl was back to work.

  “Yes, she did.” Pham Dat, the Hanoi stationmaster, had notified me when Jessie Lesage bought tickets all the way down to Saigon just days ago. I hadn’t yet been notified of her return.

  “And did she see anything shocking? Something that would make her abandon her loyalty to her husband and his unscrupulous family? Is she brandishing the red flag around town?”

  “I don’t know yet,” I said honestly. It had been my idea to get Jessie to the plantations. One last attempt to let her prove she had a conscience. Perhaps if she experienced it firsthand, she would feel differently; she would see something that she couldn’t write off as just furthering the family company. A beating by an overseer. A worker marked with scars from repeated caning. Something. I planned on probing the next time I saw her. If she was still singing the praises of capitalism, I’d know that she hadn’t or, worse, that she had and just didn’t care.

  “I doubt she did,” said Red. “I’m sure Victor hid all the misery away. But I do appreciate the money. Let me know what other asinine tasks I can do for you that pay this well. I’m open to—”

  He stopped speaking, let out another groan, and placed his hand on the girl’s face.

  I headed for the door. “Don’t make me come here again.” It had probably been stupid to give Jessie one more chance. But she was a woman; a small part of me was still hoping she’d prove me wrong.

  “Oh, it’s not so bad, is it?” he replied, his tone urging me to look at him. I did. He put out his cigarette, then leaned forward and rubbed his hands over the girl’s back and down over her large, hanging breasts. “Lovely,” he said. “I’m sure you’d enjoy them, too, Marcelle. How did the newspaper describe a night here again? As a ‘Sardanapalesque orgy,’ I think it was.”

  I rolled my eyes and tried to ignore what was happening between his thighs, where that poor girl’s head was bobbing faster. “How you haven’t died of venereal disease yet is beyond me.”

  “The big boy’s immune,” he said, looking down at his erection.

  “So long, Red,” I said, stepping into the hall.

  “So long, Marcelle. We’ll always have Paris!” he called after me.

  I froze, then turned on my heel and marched back into the room. “We never had Paris,” I hissed.

  “But we did,” he said, all humor gone from his expression. “I had you in Paris, Marcelle de Fabry. Many, many times, I had you. They really don’t make them any prettier than you, do they? I still remember every inch of that gorgeous body. I could probably draw a map of your freckles if I had enough to drink.”

  “As I said, I’m never coming here again,” I said, feeling sick to my stomach.

  “Marcelle,” he said, his expression softening.

  “What.”

  “One day, they’ll be free,” he said, nodding his head to the window, to the life on the street. “But until then, we might as well enjoy ourselves.”
/>
  I slammed the door behind me and flew down two flights of stairs. As I navigated the iron steps outside, I passed a Frenchman who said something leeringly in Russian.

  “I’m not a valaque,” I barked, using the word the Frenchmen threw around for the white whores in Indochine. “So try to keep your zipper up.”

  I hurried down the street, crowded with locals, and found the same pousse-pousse driver I’d just had, all too happy to earn another fare. Red had maneuvered Jessie to the plantation, as I’d wanted. And I knew he’d done more than just that. Feel free to shake her, I’d said. I knew how well Red could shake. But now I wished I’d used someone other than him to do so. I’d only chosen him because he had a handsome face and no moral scruples and thus was perfect for such tasks.

  Of course, he had to bring up Paris. I should have snatched the money right then and there.

  Paris.

  It was late January 1924, when I was only nineteen, and during an unusually warm winter. I’d been modeling in the Patou salon, a special presentation for our best clients, and Red had been there as a guest of a rich married woman he was sleeping with. But two days later, he was sleeping with me instead. We’d had a wild two-week love affair, but then he left for London, followed by Burma, and I never heard from him again. I realized what he really was when I started hearing stories about him in Burma. Years later, I heard that he’d made his way to Indochine. He would not be avoidable, that much I knew, but what I needed him to be was silent. I did not keep much from Khoi, but that, I would always have to.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Jessie

  November 3, 1933

  “Thank you again for your kindness,” I said smoothly to Jacques, the Dau Tieng overseer, as he saw me to my seat on the train back north. “Victor is lucky to have you working for him,” I added, trying to sound genuine.

  I knew I had to smile at Jacques. I had to be the polite woman, Victor’s perfect, helpful wife. But I was shattered. I had no idea how to be that woman anymore. My mind didn’t feel connected to my body at all. They were two separate entities, somehow traveling together.

  “Innocent men used to die on these plantations in very high numbers, due to disease or negligent overseers,” Victor had said during the days I’d been with him. “I’m trying my best to see that that happens much less. But men who are trying to incite revolution, especially violent revolution, we can’t stand for that. We can’t have a repeat of 1927 or 1930.”

  “Or 1932,” I’d added.

  “Exactly.” He’d nodded as we walked up the stairs of the Phu Rieng plantation manager’s house for cocktails, both of us dressed like we were dining at the Officers’ Club instead.

  “I’m the lucky one,” Jacques said before he stepped off the train, moving aside for a passenger, a young man, who was climbing on. “I hope to work with the company, and your husband, for many years more,” he said, smiling as he waved good-bye.

  The train rumbled out of the station, and I sighed with relief, glad I would never have to see Dau Tieng or Phu Rieng again. I knew I could never go back.

  I had been at the plantations for a week, keeping Victor company at night and spending my days mostly with the wives of the French overseers and managers. I was allowed a full tour of Dau Tieng and Phu Rieng only when accompanied by Victor. I’d fought my way through it all. But inside, I was completely empty—a hole where my heart used to be.

  I had left a room of men in the stages of death with a smile on my face. Why? Because I believed that men ready to incite a communist revolution on the plantation deserved to be punished? I did believe that. I did. I had grown up poor; I knew that stripping away the dream of upward mobility, of future opportunities, did not work. Communism was a lovely-sounding concept that made no real-world sense. People needed to be able to better themselves if they were willing to try. To fight for a superior life. It was what I had done, always. So I agreed with Victor in theory, but did that mean handing down death sentences to those who believed differently? Who felt that communism offered a vehicle for freedom and a better future, one without colonial power? They were wrong, and their beliefs were dangerous. I knew that. Victor knew that. But did it mean that a man’s life should be extinguished? Were we so committed to the success of Michelin that we would just lock men with communist leanings in a room until they breathed their last breaths? Could we really do that and be at peace with our own souls?

  I thought of the woman I was when I first met Victor. I had used all my wits and resources to get to Paris, to bend my world in the exact right shape to fit into his. Where was that fiercely determined woman now? If I had witnessed something like that scene then, even though I was trying to be the perfect woman for Victor, I would have fought to convince him to act otherwise. I had a fire in me then and I would not have left that fetid death chamber with a placid smile on my face. But now?

  I was his wife. I had asked him to leave Paris, his home, for my own selfish reasons. I was the mother of his child, whom he provided an exquisite life for. Everything I had asked Victor for over the years, he had given me, without question. And I had my siblings to think about. I still had to provide for them, too. I had to continue in this life I’d built. And so I had smiled.

  Three hours later, I forced myself to eat a lunch of roast duck and potatoes in the dining car. I kept my head in a book, hoping no one would join me, so even the staff wouldn’t speak to me. I ate and drank, but nothing had any flavor. It all tasted like dirt.

  When I had stuffed myself, I threw some money on the table and stood uneasily, having finished four glasses of wine rather quickly. I felt the eyes of the staff on me and hurried out of the car before they offered to escort me back.

  I walked through several wagons. I had one more to go until the first-class car. I pulled the door open quickly and was about to reach for the next one, but a sudden gust of wind rushed in and nearly knocked me down. I grabbed for the metal handles soldered onto the wall, meant to help with balance, and tried to find my footing again. When I regained it, I was staring out at a sliver of lush green countryside visible between the train cars.

  What if we hadn’t come to Indochine? What if I hadn’t pushed Victor to invent a new post, all because one simple woman from Virginia had made her way to Paris, found me, and threatened to tell Victor everything I had not dared to all these years? If I hadn’t let my fear control me, would those men have lived, or were they marked for death no matter what? Would the plantation manager have figured out their plan, too? Would he have killed them in the same vicious manner? Would the police, if I’d reported it to them? Or would they have sent them to a political prison where they would have met the same fate, or worse? I thought of the way Victor was with Lucie, the loving, doting father. How could that be the same man?

  I gulped in the fresh air until I felt I was choking, sure that I could smell the scent of dying men. Ly Duc Khai was still with me, all of them were, and I was suddenly quite sure they’d never leave. I already knew the way nightmares became trapped inside a person. I was sure it was happening to me again.

  I leaned forward toward the sunshine. I was not a large person. I could easily fall right off the small platform between the train cars. I looked at my right hand clutching the metal handle. My ringless hand. I let my fingers start slipping off, one by one, and when I let the final one go, my body lurched forward, I felt my face hit the metal door, then my torso, and then I felt a hand grab me.

  “Attention!” I heard a man scream. He pulled me back with such force that we both hit the door I had just exited, on the other side of the small metal walkway.

  “Madame! You nearly fell down!” he exclaimed. I turned and looked at him. It was one of the conductors, an Annamite man, perhaps in his forties, in a navy-blue uniform. “You could have fallen from the train. Are you all right? You must be careful here. It can be very dangerous,” he said, leading me inside the next train car.

  “Yes, thank you, I’m okay,” I said, trying to collect myself. I
stood upright, stepping back from him. I had nearly fallen out of the train.

  “I’m very sorry,” I mumbled. “I just had a bit too much to drink at lunch. I’m very embarrassed.” I reached into my bag for some money.

  “There’s no need for that,” he said, holding up his hands. “I’m glad I arrived in time.”

  “Please,” I said, taking money out anyway. “I insist. You were so kind to help me. I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t been there.”

  He looked at me a moment. We both knew exactly what would have happened.

  The conductor shook his head again and pointed to my bag. “Please, you can put it back. I’m just happy I reached you. I’m glad you’re still here with us.”

  If only he knew how little I deserved to be still there.

  I slept for the rest of the journey to Nha Trang, and when I reached the station, the same chauffeur picked me up. This time, I was very glad for his silence.

  “I need to make a stop before we get to the hotel,” I said, the speed of my voice matching my racing heart. “I had a very arduous journey, and I need to calm my nerves. I need some help in doing so. I need to take something. I need to rest, I need help…”

  “Opium will help, madame,” he said, kindly interrupting my frantic talk so I didn’t have to say it. “I know a local place near Qui Nhon that is very good. Everyone there will leave you in peace. And the opium they have is quite strong. It will help you rest awhile. I can see from your eyes that you need it.”

  I nodded, sure that my eyes were red and swollen. “That’s just what I need, thank you for suggesting it,” I said, rolling down the window, trying to lose myself in the country I’d been so desperate to come to.

  The chauffeur was right. Everyone left me alone at the den in Qui Nhon. This time, I didn’t hesitate at all when the girl brought the opium pipe to my lips. I inhaled and didn’t stop breathing in deeply and exhaling out slowly until I felt my body drift away. When I woke up, I was in the hotel. I didn’t remember getting there, but I was very happy that I was.